Demonstrating Backbone.js: Implement Model Part 3

Introduction

Welcome to the "Demonstrate Backbone.js" article series. This article demonstrates how to create and use a Model in Backbone.js. This article starts with the concept of Backbone.js and various components of it. In our previous article we saw an introduction to Backbone.js and in Part 1 and Part 2 the model implementation that you can get form here.

In this article we will see more about a Model implementation in Backbone.js.

How do we define a function within a Model?

We can also define a function in a model. In the following snippet we will set a function as a member of the Model. Here is the sample implementation.

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="JavaScript.aspx.cs" Inherits="JavaScript.JavaScript" %>

<!DOCTYPE html>

</head>

<body>

Product = Backbone.Model.extend({

samplefunction: function () {

console.log('I am function within Product Model');

}

);

var product = new Product();

product.samplefunction();</script>

</form>

</body>

</html>

The “samplefunction” property contains one anonymous function that we are calling with an object of the Product class. Here is the sample output:

function within Model

How to save the Model data using the save() function?

To save Model data we need to define one property of the Model class called “url”. This property will contain the URL of any service based application, for example a Web API service. Have a look at the following snippet.

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="JavaScript.aspx.cs"Inherits="JavaScript.JavaScript" %>

<!DOCTYPE html>

</head>

<body>

Product = Backbone.Model.extend({

url: '/products',

defaults: {

name: 'Macbook',

manufacturer: 'Apple'

}

});

var product = new Product();

product.save();

</script>

</form>

</body>

</html>

Model data in JSON format

Backbone.js contains a toJSON() function that will help us to convert Model data to JSON format directly.

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="JavaScript.aspx.cs" Inherits="JavaScript.JavaScript" %>

<!DOCTYPE html>

</head>

<body>

Product = Backbone.Model.extend({

defaults: {

productname: 'MacBook',

Manufacturer:'Apple'

});

var product = new Product();

console.log(product.toJSON());

</script>

</form>

</body>

</html>

Here is the sample output:

Summary

In this article, I explained how to implement a Model with Backbone.js. We also saw how to define functions in Model. Then, we saw how to save Model data and put model data in JSON format. In future articles we will understand more about Models with examples. I hope you have liked it.